A dog with persistence-of-vision LEDs in her shirt writes my novel Makers in the park at night

Michael created a dog-shirt equipped with persistence-of-vision LEDs controlled by a LilyPad soft Arduino, and programmed it to output the text of my novel Makers as his pooch ran gleefully around the park at night. Then he photographed it and sent it to me, and my head exploded with delight.

Mounting 5 LEDs on a moving object creates one of the cheapest and largest displays: Persistence of Vision. It's been done on bicycle wheels, fans and other rotating objects.

In this project i am sewing a Lilypad wearable Arduino board and five LEDs with conductive thread on my dog's shirt. She's a Miniature Pinscher running very fast for fun. In curves fast enough for Persitence of Vision. And she likes running in large circles in the park! Light writing.

That this makes perfect sense to me has convinced me that we are already inside the technological singularity. I can’t imagine how weird it must have been for random strangers in the park witnessing a little blinking cyborg dog running in circles but I hope it blew their minds.